Stuplid Big LiesAJ Robinson

My daughter's getting married soon. She and her fiancé are already talking about buying a little house. This would be a time of great joy and anticipation.

My wife and I are concerned with her future.

A young couple getting their own home is a big step forward in the journey of their lives together. For us, my wife and I, there’s a tinge, cloaking the event with some regret regarding what their future holds.

You see, we live in Florida. These days Climate Change is making things increasingly hot and uncomfortable. Miami is already dealing with flooding; summers are becoming blistering hot, and winters short and intense. If it’s this bad now, in 2016, what will it be like in ten years, twenty? What will their children have to deal with?

I find it both amusing and heart breaking there are still climate deniers. I know their standard arguments: C-O-two levels have varied over time, it’s a conspiracy to redistribute wealth, a power grab or they’re after money and that the science isn’t settled.

Just because most scientists agree doesn’t mean anything. After all, scientists have agreed on other things before and been wrong. A new argument is that the Earth is merely shifting closer to the sun for a while.

Oh brother, where art though common sense.

Yes, levels of C-O-two have varied for millennia, but they’ve never been this high and they’re going higher. I don't need anyone to tell me the world is getting hotter. That Orlando is hot in December and January is confirmation enough. There was a time when we’d get cool in October, cold for most of winter and then have a mild spring. No longer, as we go from blistering hot to hot, to frigid and then back to hot, all in a very brief time.

The ideas of redistributing wealth, power grabs or being after money are absurd. Sure, some extremists want us off coal, gas and oil, in a few years, which is equally absurd, but most mainstream advocates want simple things: boost renewable, cut down on coal and oil, recycle and so on.

Everything they advocate is good for our country and the planet. How is implementing them a bad thing? I certainly don’t hear any of the scientists saying, “Oh yeah, give me billions in research grants, and I’ll solve the problem.”

Recently, I heard a denier claiming the data released from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was biased and altered, deliberately, to further the “conspiracy.” Let’s think about that, shall we? So, thousands of scientists, from dozens of different disciplines, in countries all over the world, have gotten together to advance this fake theory. Considering that many of them don’t stand to gain a thing from doing so, what exactly is their motivation? Did someone pay them off? Have their lives been threatened by the conspirators?

That’s a tall order and only an unthinking mind would image it possible, let alone true.

The GOP is the only political party in the world to deny climate change.

Finally, consider this: the GOP is the only political party in the world to deny the truth of Climate Change. What does that say about this so-called party of the people? I have to say, I worry about my daughter and her future family. I no longer see Florida real estate as being a wise investment.

Combining the gimlet-eye, of Philip Roth, with the precisive mind of Lionel Trilling, AJ Robinson writes about what goes bump in the mind, of 21st century adults. Raised in Boston, with summers on Martha's Vineyard, AJ now lives in Florida. Most of the time he writes, but sometimes he works at Disney World to renew his fantasies and get a few dollars more. AJ writes, with insight and passion, about his family and his dog. His liberal, note the small "l," sensibilities often lead to bouts of righteous indignation, well focused and true.